`COLORBLINDNESS`

Kent LeahyCHICAGO TRIBUNE

The Reagan administration`s call for ''colorblindness'' in reaction to preferential hiring policies for blacks and other minorities represents an unrealistic assessment of the deleterious forms of discrimination currently operating in our society. When these processes are at work, antidiscrimination remedies that ignore group attributes are insufficient in combating such elements of discrimination that operate at the institutional and structural levels of our society. Such forms of discrimination transform supposedly neutral acts into elements that produce marked economic and social inequities between whites and blacks.

While it might be argued that overt discrimination has declined, there is little doubt that institutional and structural forms of discrimination continue to thrive. Such discrimination will not yield to remedies that are premised on ignoring their existence. Discrimination against blacks is a process that will continue unless systematically dismantled.

If our domestic policies must be ''blind,'' let them be blind to the specious polemics of those like President Reagan who maintain that

''fairness'' only applies to those who have taken advantage of the opportunities that were made available to them, but denied to others.